Stolen Gauguin and Bonnard art recovered after hanging on a kitchen wall

By Livia Borghese and Marie-Louise Gumuchian, CNN

Updated 12:52 PM ET, Wed April 2, 2014

Notorious art heists13 photos

A statue called "Young Girl with Serpent" by Auguste Rodin was stolen from a home in Beverly Hills, California, in 1991. It was returned after someone offered it on consignment to Christie's auction house. Rodin, a French sculptor considered by some aficionados to have been the father of modern sculpture, lived from 1840 until 1917. His most famous work, "The Thinker," shows a seated man with his chin on his hand.

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Picasso's "La Coiffeuse" ("The Hairdresser") was discovered missing in 2001 and was recovered when it was shipped from Belgium to the United States in December 2014. The shipper said it was a $37 piece of art being sent to the United States as a Christmas present. The feds say it was actually a stolen Picasso, missing for more than a decade and worth millions of dollars.

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Italy's Culture Ministry unveils two paintings by the French artists Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard on April 2, 2014. The paintings, worth millions of euros, were stolen from a family house in London in 1970, abandoned on a train and then later sold at a lost-property auction, where a factory worker paid 45,000 Italian lire for them -- roughly equivalent to 22 euros ($30).

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A Renoir painting finished in the 1800s, loaned to a museum, reported stolen in 1951 and then bought at a flea market in 2010 has to be returned to the museum, a judge ruled on January 10, 2014. The 5½-by-9-inch painting, titled "Landscape on the Banks of the Seine," was bought for $7 at a flea market by a Virginia woman. The estimated value is between $75,000 and $100,000.

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Seven famous paintings were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 2012, including Claude Monet's "Charing Cross Bridge, London." The paintings, in oil and watercolor, include Pablo Picasso's "Harlequin Head," Henri Matisse's "Reading Girl in White and Yellow," Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed" and Claude Monet's "Waterloo Bridge," seen here. Works by Gauguin and Meyer de Haan were also taken.

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Eight months after Salvador Dali's "Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio" was stolen in a New York gallery, a Greek national was indicted on a grand larceny charge in 2013.

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In 1473, Hans Memling's "The Last Judgment" was stolen by pirates and became the first documented art theft.

In 1911, Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was stolen from the Louvre by an Italian who had been a handyman for the museum. The famous painting was recovered two years later.

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Among their many crimes, the Nazis plundered precious artworks as they gained power during World War II. "Adele Bloch-Bauer I," by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, was confiscated from the owner when he fled from Austria.

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Many works of art that were taken by the Nazis were never recovered. Others were returned after years of legal battles. "Christ Carrying the Cross," by Italian artist Girolamo de' Romani, was returned to his family in 2012.

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"The Scream" was one of two Edvard Munch paintings that were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, in 2004.

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In 2007, Pablo Picasso's oil painting ''Portrait of Suzanne Bloch" was taken from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art. It was recovered two years later.

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Story highlights

Italian police recover two valuable paintings that were stolen more than 40 years ago

The art was stolen in London and later abandoned on a Paris-to-Turin train

A factory worker bought the paintings at a lost-property auction in 1975

He paid about 22 euros for both, and one may be worth at least 10 million euros now, police say

Two stolen paintings by the French artists Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard hung in an Italian man's home for nearly 40 years -- without his knowing just how valuable they were.

Now worth millions of euros, the artworks were stolen from a family house in London in 1970 and then abandoned on a Paris-to-Turin train.

Italy's Culture Ministry unveiled the two paintings Wednesday after they were recovered by police specialized in finding stolen art, following an "incredible" series of events.

The paintings were put away in the Italian Railways lost and found storage facility. The man, a factory worker for the car company Fiat, paid 45,000 Italian lire (roughly 22 euros or U.S. $30) for the pieces at auction in 1975. The man was an art lover, but he had no idea of the real value of the paintings, police said.

The man, whom police did not name, hung the works in his Turin home before taking them to Sicily when he retired.

Italian heritage police were alerted last summer when a friend of the worker grew suspicious of their value.

"There are all the elements for a nice novel; it is very unique," Gen. Mariano Mossa, head of the Italian Heritage Police, said at a news conference.

Locked up in a safe

Police soon matched the works with those stolen in London. A notice of the theft had appeared in The New York Times on July 6, 1970.

The Gauguin painting -- "Fruits on a Table or Still Life with a Small Dog" -- is said to date to 1889 and is believed to be worth between $13.7 million and $41 million, police said.